Cold storage is a storage paradigm for storing large amounts of data that are rarely access or modified. For example, cold storage data may be employed to store sensor output, camera footage, internet of things (IoT) related data, archived electronic messages, or other archive data. Cold storage operates on the presumption that large amounts of data are to be stored and that most of the data will be accessed/modified rarely or not at all. Cold storage systems are designed to provide large amounts of storage in a space efficient manner. Data access time for cold storage systems should be reasonably low (e.g. less than a minute) while maintaining high data density and minimizing power consumption. Multiple access may also be beneficial for searching the large data volumes. The cold storage system should also be protected from hardware failure and provide efficient mechanisms for hardware replacement and data recovery when hardware components fail.